The General (Professionals 4)

I should have been sick.

Horrified.

Regretful.

Something.

But all I felt was numb.

Shock. This was what they always talked about on nighttime dramas after traumatic events. Shock. Like your system couldn’t process the emotions, so they locked you down to them.

It was only maybe a couple of moments before I knew that I was in trouble. That I was going to go to jail. For the rest of my life. That all the time I spent with Teddy for good reason while he beat the life out of me would be for naught.

No.

No way.

I couldn’t let that be my fate.

I half-turned to my husband’s desk, seeing my phone sitting there in its sedate gold case. It was there for the same reason I didn’t get to have a password on it. Because Teddy checked it. Every single night. To make sure I wasn’t, I don’t know, looking for ways to leave him, or kill him or divorce him and still get the money, or, of course, cheat on him.

I reached for it, opening an incognito window because it seemed like the situation called for it even though I genuinely had no idea what the purpose of an incognito window even was for. Aside from masturbating husbands not wanting their puritanical wives to know what porn they liked to watch, I guess.

And I typed in the words that came to mind because I had seen TV shows about it.

Fixers.

Professional fixers.

And there one was.

Right in Navesink Bank.

Like it had been waiting for me to finally get the lady balls to do this so they could help me fix it.

The woman at the desk was calm, efficient, never even hesitating while I rambled through my sordid story about murdering my own husband. Maybe I should have been put off by that. But, to me, all it said was that these people had seen – and fixed – it all. So I had nothing to worry about.

Being told a man named Smith would be there in a few moments and not to move or touch anything including myself, I waited.

Then there he was.

He walked like he’d served. See, they always had a walk. A swagger in a way. I’d grown up in a town full of active service men and women and veterans alike. They all walked the same way.

This man who was supposed to be honorable and lawful was going to help me hide a murder.

His head turned after looking down at the blood drops I hadn’t even known I had dripped.

My husband was lying dead a few feet away from me. I shouldn’t have been able to even notice anything like this.

But he was good-looking.

No.

That wasn’t fair. It didn’t do him justice.

He was gorgeous.

I couldn’t call him handsome. Teddy was handsome. Bertram was handsome. Men with perfect aristocratic features, they were handsome.

This man was more than that. Taller, wider, stronger, more rugged with his dirty-blond or light brown hair, his matching beard, his thick gray work pants, black boots, black tee, black leather jacket. The worn kind. Well-loved over many winters, enough so that the seams were loosened, there were whitish creases in the spaces that felt the most motion – the crook of the elbow, the material next to the zipper, the buttoned flaps of the front pockets.

This man was gorgeous.

And in full work-mode.

All business.

Hard, but with hints of soft too.

He called me sweetheart.

I hadn’t heard an endearment in so long that the effect was like that of a blushing schoolgirl. Butterflies swarmed my belly, their fluttering making goosebumps prickle up over my skin.

And as he moved around, cleaning, explaining, giving intense detail, I felt for the first time since, well, ever, that everything was going to be okay.

So when he left, the sinking feeling of uncertainty, fear, insecurity, was expected.

But I faked a happy marriage for fifteen years.

I could fake a grieving widow for the police dispatcher, the EMTs, the cops, the ME, the detectives.

And I did, dredging up some high school drama to sniffle, whimper, sob, tremble, mumble, whatever felt necessary in the situation.

It wasn’t until I heard one of the cops mumble that The senator is here that I doubted myself.

His eyes saw everything. They knew all. And if he saw a single tear misplaced, he had a long reach, he had ways to make terrible things happen.

I pretended I didn’t hear the news, hearing the detective ask me something about my husband having any enemies.

“No! Everyone loved Teddy,” I declared, voice cracking, tears starting afresh. “Everyone he met knew he was… he was a good man. People loved him. I lo…” I broke off there, head planting in my hands as my body shook with sobs, ones I had been holding in for so long that they didn’t need to be faked.

They weren’t for him, though.

They were for me.

“Oh, Jennifer,” Bertram’s voice called, calm as ever, but there was a bit of roughness there as he stood in front of me, likely taking in the bloodstain that had seeped out of his son before his body had been removed after pictures were taken and the scene dusted. “What did they do to you?” he asked when my head lifted, showing him the damage his son had done, wondering if he saw the truth of that or if he was believing the lie. His hand lifted, fingers touching my chin. “Detectives, I don’t think I need to say that I need all hands on deck with this. I will be in touch with your captain. This was my son. My only…” he broke off a bit, making my head jerk to see if he was actually going to break down. But his head just hung for a moment before lifting again. One of the detectives closed a hand on his shoulder, leading him away. Maybe to ask him if his son had any enemies.